409: jade

"The Holy Mother said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light!"

"The Holy Mother said, 'Let there be people,' and there were people!"

"The Holy Mother said, 'Let there be goodness,' and there was virtue!"

"All beings are born with sin; they must follow the true teachings of the Holy Mother, guided by her holy wisdom, to wash away their transgressions."

"The Mother stood by the river and said: 'What passes is like this, never ceasing day or night.'"

..."Goodbye, Teacher!"

After bidding their teacher farewell, the classmates quickly packed up their desks, ready to go home.

A pure-looking girl walked up to the desk of a boy who was still slowly organizing his schoolbag, and gently tapped his desktop with her finger.

"Yang Kun, I wonder if you're free this weekend? I want to, I want to..." Her voice was quiet, and she spoke shyly with her head down.

"What do you want to do?"

The boy, called Yang Kun, looked up, adjusted his silver-rimmed glasses, and asked seriously.

"It's just..."

"It's just, oh, you know!"

After speaking, the girl covered her flushed face and scurried out of the classroom.

"Know? What am I supposed to know?" The girl's behavior left Yang Kun a bit bewildered.

As an ordinary high school student who had been influenced by the Holy Mother Sect for ten years, Yang Kun's mind was filled only with the great righteousness of humanity.

These students had only one purpose for going to school: to achieve success in their studies so that they could repay the Holy Mother Sect in the future.

"Could it be that she wants to discuss the doctrines of the Holy Mother Sect with me this weekend?"

"But what's there to be shy about? Why is her face red?"

He couldn't understand, Yang Kun truly couldn't understand.

Walking out of the First Senior High School of City 0118733 in Province 01187, he looked to both sides of the street. (Of the seven digits representing the city, the first two are the world number, the middle three are the province number, and the last two are the city number within that province.

For example, for City 8 in Province 17 of World 13, the full name of the city would be City 1301708.

For specific counties and districts within the city, numbers are simply added after the city number.)

The streets outside were lined with stalls, mainly selling snacks, skewers, milk tea, and drinks.

Of course, some vendors would also sell strange and exotic items to attract students' attention.

However, such businesses usually didn't last long; the main draw remained the snacks.

For instance, there was one stall that had been set up at their school gate for over a decade, a truly established ten-year-old brand.

Today, Yang Kun didn't plan to take the bus home; he wanted to walk back and explore along the way.

"Hey, Ah Kun!"

As he was walking, Yang Kun heard someone calling him from behind.

He turned his head and saw it was his good brother and best friend from class, Long Tao.

For some reason, Yang Kun and his classmates always subconsciously overlooked him in whatever they did.

Long Tao was also very distressed by this, but there was nothing he could do.

So Yang Kun turned around and stopped, waiting for him.

"Ah Kun, you walk so fast, you didn't even wait for me."

As soon as he arrived, Long Tao immediately put his arm around Yang Kun's shoulder.

"Did you know that Lin Lan passed her blood test last week and was chosen as a Holy Chosen by the Holy Mother Sect?"

"That's amazing, I'm envious," Yang Kun said with a serious expression.

Lin Lan was the girl who had spoken to Yang Kun in the classroom earlier.

"From now on, she and we will be people from two different worlds."

"Just now in the classroom, she was clearly interested in you, I don't know what you're thinking."

Upon hearing this, Yang Kun looked shocked, "Was she? Why didn't I know? I couldn't tell at all?"

Long Tao also froze, "Brother, are you really clueless or just pretending? She was like that, what else could it be if not that she's interested in you?"

"Don't spread rumors about things that aren't true," Yang Kun glanced around and whispered, "Lin Lan is a Holy Chosen now. Dare to spread rumors about her, and she'll make you pay!"

"You..." Long Tao shrunk his neck, clearly a bit speechless, but then he brightened up and shrugged.

This was good too; otherwise, watching his brother embrace a rich woman and drive a luxury car would be even more unbearable than killing him.

Yang Kun was actually genuinely envious in his heart.

He was sixteen this year, and including last time, he had participated in the selection of Holy Chosen sixteen times, all of which got stuck at the blood test stage.

One of his childhood playmates, with whom he had grown up wearing split-crotch pants since they were small,

was chosen at the age of eight and taken to be trained by the Holy Mother Sect. After some time, her parents and family were also brought over to live with her.

And Yang Kun had liked that childhood playmate since he was young, and she also liked him.

When they parted ways back then, both were full of reluctance.

From that moment on, Yang Kun vowed to become a Holy Chosen and see his childhood playmate again.

Unfortunately, he had never succeeded over all these years.

"I wonder when I'll be able to become a Holy Chosen!"

This sentence was not spoken by Yang Kun, but by Long Tao.

He had always lacked a sense of presence since he was small; people around him would always subconsciously ignore his existence.

If he could become a Holy Chosen, would he then receive more attention and no longer be ignored?

Both good brothers had the idea of becoming Holy Chosen, and both sighed helplessly.

"Alright, Ah Kun, shall we part ways here?"

Upon reaching a certain intersection, Long Tao said goodbye to Yang Kun.

Both of them still had some distance to go home, but their locations were different, so it was time to part ways here.

"Okay, be careful on the road."

"You too."

After bidding each other farewell, the two went their separate ways.

A moment after they parted, Yang Kun suddenly stopped.

Wait, who was with me just now?

Never mind, he wouldn't think about it; if he couldn't remember, it must have been an irrelevant person. Then Yang Kun continued walking home.

Hmm?

As he was nearing home, he suddenly stepped on something very hard and uncomfortable.

Curiously, he moved his foot and looked down; it seemed to be a very shiny jade stone.

Found a treasure?

As this thought appeared, Yang Kun immediately bent down to pick up the jade stone.

However, something strange happened.

The moment Yang Kun's hand touched the jade stone, its luster moved from the point of contact onto his hand.

By the time Yang Kun picked it up, the jade stone had already turned into an ordinary stone.

"Could it be an illusion?" Seeing that he had picked up a piece of trash, he casually threw the stone away.

It had been quite shiny when he looked at it just now.

What Yang Kun didn't notice was a flicker of fluorescent light deep within his eyes.

Back home, his mother was still cooking. Yang Kun greeted her and then sat on the sofa to turn on the TV.

"According to reports, a sparrow in Province 124 was entangled in several exposed high-voltage wires."

"The local Holy Mother made a decision within half an hour: the entire province's power was shut down, and professional personnel spent half an hour successfully rescuing the sparrow."

"As soon as the news was reported, it quickly attracted widespread attention from all sectors of society and received unanimous praise from industry insiders."

"They stated that this act was a manifestation of the Holy Mother Sect's great virtue and love, calling on us to cherish every life."

"Countless people were deeply moved by this, and all who heard it shed tears."

"Today, the "virtue language" is an essential book in every household."

"This scene makes me recall a line from the "virtue language" — 'What my heart desires, I will not regret even if I die nine times.'"